Hey there - I don't really have any pressing story-related questions at present, but I'd just like to thank you for your awesome answers and your commitment to maintaining this blog! :) I hope this month goes well for you! Although since I'm already using the ask-box, I guess I'd ask: What general cliches about torture's effects on its victims would you like to see subverted more often? By that I'd mean - what kind of 'victim reactions' do you think are overdone or misleading?
That really does dependon how I’m feeling and what I’ve been watching or reading at the time.
I tend to draw a prettyclear distinction between stuff I don’t like or find overdone and tropes thatactively justify torture.
For the purposes ofthis question let’s take it as read that fiction which shows torture as a ‘good’or even remotely justifiable thing tends to send me into a frothing rage.
One of the tropes Ithink is very misleading is the tendency to show torture making people passive.
I’mthinking in particular about stories set in periods that had slavery and justhow often enslaved and subjugated people are shown as….good but submissive.They’re shown as unhappy and aware of the injustice of their position but alsounable or unwilling to do anything to change it.
They’rewritten as if they are all, alwayssuffering from a very particular set of depressive symptoms.
Andthat’s usually done so that a brave, bold outsider can sweep in and rescueeveryone.
Thereare Issues with that sort of story line that are well outside what it saysabout torture and torture victims.
ButI think this one really stands out as ‘off’ to me because it’s so much at oddswith the behaviour I see recorded. Especially in the Caribbean and the NewWorld.
EnslavedAfricans in the New World repeatedly and given the circumstances prettysuccessfully resisted.
I’vegot a whole book entirely on the violent African-led wars in Brazil and Cuba.And I use the word ‘war’ instead of uprising very deliberately because that iswhat the black people in Brazil and Cuba said themselves.
‘We are making war on the whites.’
Thesewere people who had lived in one of the biggest periods of instability WesternAfrica had ever seen. Many of them were captured soldiers.
Theyorganised across plantations, communicated, stockpiled food and weapons. Theyattacked key strategic positions, occupied towns and in Brazil they regularly set up their own parallel societies inisolated regions that conducted periodic raids on ‘white’ society.
Oneof my favourite martial arts, capoeira, was actually formed in one of thesesocieties. Its movements, culture and the method of training were all designedprimarily to evade detection by an insanely unjust elite that was completely paranoidabout any form of African resistance to slavery.
Infact when I was first given a capoeira name it was explained to me in terms oftorture: ‘We had these nicknames so thatif the whites tortured people they would not be able to betray their friends.Now that’s part of our tradition.’
Theonly successful slave-led war inhistory was in the Caribbean, in Haiti. Toussaint Louverture led an army thatwas regularly with proper clothing and footwear let alone weaponry and beat inno particular order: the French, the British, the Spanish and Napoleon.
Andyet somehow, time and time again, I see black people in the Caribbean andAmerica portrayed as passive.
Ithink it does a huge disservice to the historical record and to black people inthe New World today. It shows all of us a very distorted view of their history.
Andfrom the point of view of writing torture victims it doesn’t entirely add up.
Victimscan be too afraid to resist in obvious ways or at all. They can be paralysed by fear or apathy.
Butthey can also be highly aggressive towards their captors. They can be recklessand they can plan meticulously. They can be ruthless and daring. They cansacrifice themselves for the sake of others.
Theycan, in short, access the full range of human emotions.
Jumpingforward in time by a few hundred years does anyone remember the occupation ofMali’s north by armed extremists several years ago?
Inan area where music had long been a central part of life these armed groupsbanned it. They burnt recording studios, smashed instruments and threatened tomaim or murder musicians.
Afew years later someone made a documentary on the effect this had on the peopletalking particularly to musicians. Taking the title from the attitude thesepeople showed it was called They Will Have to Kill UsFirst.
People are rarelypassive and torture victims, so far as I can see always seem to find some way to resist, even if it seemssmall.
I wish less fictionshowed them as passive objects and I wish less fiction assumed violentresistance was the only form that ‘counts’.
The more I read themore I find thatthe Fela Kuti’s of this world are not the exception.
We can not be broken. We can not be forced.Our beliefs can not be beaten out of us.
Isn’t that the more empowering narrative?
blakekathryn
janainaart
tangentwithtanner
germansingergirl
kaledo-art
